Moka City

A school hall by a Wright disciple.

Kubo Auditorium, by Endo Arata

Photo by AT To (CC BY-SA 2.0)

01 ／ Jin'ya

A building raised the year Sontoku arrivedstands on the Jin'ya site after later alterations.

Sakuramachi Jin'ya was built by the Utsu family, hatamoto retainers of the shogun, as the office governing three villages, and Ninomiya Sontoku took up his post and lived here. The present building, the city says, went up the year Sontoku arrived, then was extended and repaired; its size matches a record of the roof's rethatching in 1839. The national designation notes that writings of the Hotoku precepts and poems remain on the doors, shelves and wooden shutters.

National historic site, 1932
Size matches the 1839 record
Precepts and poems on the doors and shutters

02 ／ Haniwa

A chicken with a red-painted combcame out of a sixth-century tomb.

Niwatorizuka Kofun is a tomb in Moka designated as a prefectural historic site. The sixth-century chicken-shaped haniwa found here stands 53.8 cm tall. Its comb and wattle are painted red, and its eyes were made round by pressing a thin tube into the clay. Four chicken haniwa and several figures of women were found in the same tomb. This chicken is held by the Tokyo National Museum.

Sixth-century chicken haniwa
53.8 cm tall
Held by the Tokyo National Museum

03 ／ Shrine buildings

Carpenters from across the Kanto regiondecorated the main hall with carvings.

Osaki Shrine's main hall was built in 1707, and its worship and offering halls in the late 17th century, by skilled carpenters invited from across the Kanto region. The main hall is decorated with dragon carvings on its bracket sets and with patterned relief on its pillars and walls, and the worship hall has many carvings around its front porch and a triangular chidori gable on its roof. It became an Important Cultural Property in 2018.

Main hall, 1707
Worship and offering halls, late 17th century
Important Cultural Property, 2018

Living here

The Yamizo hills to the east, the Kinu River to the west.

about 80,000 people

The city introduces itself as a place with the Yamizo mountains stretching to the east and the Kinu River flowing to the west. Neighboring towns merged into the city in 1954, and in 2009 it merged with Ninomiya to take its present form. In the Edo period it was known as a producing region of Moka cotton. For Moka Station, the city directs visitors from Oyama Station on the Mito Line to Shimodate Station, about 20 minutes, then on the Moka Railway, about 25 minutes.

People living here: 78,190people
Area: 167.34km²
Households: 29,425households
Rent (average for rentals): 44,132yen
Healthcare: 3 hospitals ／ 68 clinics

Area and habitable land at the same scalee-Stat B1101 / B1103

Population from 2010 onward (municipal boundary changed).2009-03-23 に編入合併（二宮町）。2010年調査から市域が変わっている。

Children waiting for childcare: —15 nurseries and similar
Home purchase subsidy: —
Average annual temperature: —

These 3 items are waiting on a nationwide data source. We do not fill them with estimates.

Shape

Borders 9 municipalities across 1 prefectures.

Moka City in Japan36.440°N 140.013°E

Territory of Moka City

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)Lakes: National Land Numerical Information (Lake Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari. Prepared with the approval of the Director-General of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using its Digital Map 25000 (Spatial Data Framework) and Digital Map 25000 (Place Names and Public Facilities). (承認番号平27情使、第585号)

North to south

19.4km

Tochigi Prefecture: 益子町, 上三川町, 宇都宮市, 芳賀町, 市貝町, 下野市, 小山市
Ibaraki Prefecture: 筑西市, 桜川市

Travel times per leg are not published by the municipality, so they are not shown.

Moka City isthis kind of town.

01Kubo Auditorium was built in 1938 as the hall of a former primary school to a design by Endo Arata, and moved to its present site in 1986. The city says it was the first building in the prefecture to be Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, in 1997
02The site of Sakuramachi Jin'ya, where Ninomiya Sontoku took up his post, is a national historic site, and the size of its present building matches a record of the 1839 rethatching. A sixth-century chicken haniwa was unearthed at Niwatorizuka Kofun, a prefectural historic site
03At Osaki Shrine, the main hall built by carpenters invited from across the Kanto region is an Important Cultural Property. The city also has Senju-ji Temple, with buildings that are Important Cultural Properties, and the Okabe Memorial Hall, once the Okabe family's villa

See the town as it is now.

Source: Wikidata (P2002, P2003, P2013, P2397)

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Moka City official site ↗Wikipedia ↗